Editing Expressionism (section)

{{Short description|Modernist art movement}}
{{Distinguish|Abstract Expressionism|Expressivism}}
{{Infobox art movement|name=Expressionism|image=Edvard Munch, 1893, The Scream, oil, tempera and pastel on cardboard, 91 x 73 cm, National Gallery of Norway.jpg|caption=[[Edvard Munch]], ''[[The Scream]]'', {{circa}}1893, oil, tempera and pastel on cardboard, 91 × 73 cm, [[National Gallery of Norway]], inspired 20th-century expressionists.|yearsactive=The years before WWI and the interwar years|country=Predominantly Germany|influences=|influenced=[[American Figurative Expressionism]], generally, and [[Boston Expressionism]], in particular|majorfigures=Artists loosely categorized within such groups as [[Die Brücke]], [[Der Blaue Reiter]]; the [[Berlin Secession]], the [[School of Paris]] and the [[Dresden Secession]]}}
[[File:Ernst Ludwig Kirchner - Czardas dancers - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|czardas dancers]]
'''Expressionism''' is a [[Modernism|modernist]] [[art movement|movement]], initially in [[poetry]] and [[painting]], originating in [[History of art#Expressionism (c. 1905–1930)|Northern Europe]] around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas.<ref name="ThompsonB"/><ref>[[Chris Baldick]] ''Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms'', entry for Expressionism</ref> Expressionist artists have sought to express the meaning<ref name="VT">Victorino Tejera, 1966, pages 85,140, Art and Human Intelligence, Vision Press Limited, London</ref> of emotional experience rather than physical reality.<ref name="VT"/><ref>The Oxford Illustrated Dictionary, 1976 edition, page 294</ref>

Expressionism developed as an [[avant-garde]] style before the [[First World War]]. It remained popular during the [[Weimar culture|Weimar Republic]],<ref name="ThompsonB">Bruce Thompson, University of California, Santa Cruz, [http://media.ucsc.edu/classes/thompson/weimar.html lecture on Weimar culture/Kafka'a Prague] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100111221535/http://media.ucsc.edu/classes/thompson/weimar.html |date=2010-01-11 }}</ref> particularly in Berlin. The style extended to a wide range of the arts, including [[expressionist architecture]], painting, literature, [[Expressionism (theatre)|theatre]], dance, [[German expressionist cinema|film]] and [[Expressionist music|music]].<ref name="EHGombrich">{{cite book|last1=Gombrich|first1=E.H.|title=The Story of Art|date=1995|publisher=Phaidon|location=London|isbn=978-0714832470|pages=[https://archive.org/details/storyofart00gomb_0/page/563 563–568]|edition=16. ed. (rev., expanded and redesigned).|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/storyofart00gomb_0/page/563}}</ref> Paris became a gathering place for a group of Expressionist artists, many of Jewish origin, dubbed the [[School of Paris]]. After World War II, figurative expressionism influenced artists and styles around the world.

The term is sometimes suggestive of [[angst]]. In a historical sense, much older painters such as [[Matthias Grünewald]] and [[El Greco]] are sometimes termed expressionist, though the term is applied mainly to 20th-century works. The Expressionist emphasis on individual and subjective perspective has been characterized as a reaction to [[positivism]] and other artistic styles such as [[Realism (arts)#Realism or naturalism as resisting idealizing|Naturalism]] and [[Impressionism]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Enciclopedia Garzanti della letteratura |last=Garzanti |first=Aldo |author-link=Aldo Garzanti |year=1974 |orig-year=1972 |publisher=[[Guido Villa]] |location=Milan |pages=963 |language=it|ref=garzanti}} page 241</ref>

[[File:El Greco View of Toledo.jpg|thumb|[[El Greco]] ''View of Toledo'', 1595/1610 is a [[Mannerism|Mannerist]] precursor of 20th-century expressionism.<ref>{{cite web|title=El Greco|url=http://www.artble.com/artists/el_greco|publisher=Artble|accessdate=7 February 2016|date=2016}}</ref>]]